A teacher who threatened to place a special needs pupil under a voodoo curse
as a form of punishment and called another "Pepsi Max" has been
banned from the classroom.

Roslyn Holloway, who taught at the Lord Silkin Trust Secondary School in Telford, Shrops, threatened to use the bizarre ritual to drown the unnamed student if he didn’t stop misbehaving in class.

In a series of other incidents, the special educational needs teacher tore the hair out of a pupil’s skull after he did not stop talking in class while she also engaged in sexual-based conversation with another.

A General Teaching Council panel was told that she struck another different boy on the forehead with the heel of her hand in the school corridor, referred to him as an "idiot" in front of his classmates and threatened to bang his head on the table.

She was formally cautioned by police for battery, for the hair pulling incident involving one of her students in November 2009, but failed to notify her employers, which breached her employment conditions, even though they were aware of caution.

Holloway, who taught students aged 13 at the school from September 2003 until her suspension in January last year, also racially abused other pupils by calling them "black boy", "Pepsi Max" and "ginge" during class.

The teacher, 49, orginally from Shropshire but who now lives in Yell, on the Shetland Isles, would discuss inappropriate subject matters with her pupils including black magic, voodoo and torturing toy dolls.

The disciplinary panel heard that given her experience she should have been aware that her she was engaging in “unacceptable behaviour”.

After the parents of two children complained that they had been left “distressed”, she was counselled by her bosses to change her methods, which she failed to heed.

Yesterday it emerged that the council’s Professional Conduct Committee, sitting in Birmingham, found her guilty of six counts of "unacceptable professional conduct" and banned her from the classroom.

The panel said the case represented a "significant abuse of trust and the violation of the rights of pupils, some of whom were vulnerable".

In a written statement, read out to the panel in her absence, she admitted all the allegations and stated she accepted they amounted to unacceptable professional behaviour.

During the hearing, the panel was told that during one humanities lesson, Holloway pulled out a student's hair, wrapped it around the leg of a key ring voodoo doll and told him that if she dropped it his leg would hurt.

She added in front of his follow classmates that if she put the doll in water he would drown.

A few days later she pulled out some of another student's hair after he did not stop talking before threatening to also placed a voodoo curse on him.

In another incident, she told one student she would never kiss him because he was a "big hairy frog”.

While during a drama lesson she "used offensive language" when she said "come on ginge" to one student and referred to another two pupils as "pepsi max" and "black boy".

Anne Lyons, the school’s deputy head teacher, told the hearing that Holloway was considered "outspoken". "She felt this was the kinds of names she used as a matter of course,” she said. “I don't think she was sorry about it at all."

Max Hyde, chair of the panel, ruled she failed to protect the children through actions that “made some vulnerable children believe this behaviour to be appropriate”.

"(Her) conduct included using derogatory and abusive words towards children that made other children believe such behaviour was appropriate and legitimised,” he said.

“In addition she made inappropriate physical contact with pupils who on some occasions were vulnerable children with special educational needs. On occasions this caused significant distress to the relevant pupils

"It was particularly poor to legitimise this behaviour in a school setting that cares for vulnerable pupils. Her continued poor conduct shows a deep seeded attitude and personal problem.”

The teacher, who could not be reached for comment, was struck off for at least four years. She has already been dismissed by the school, which has 530 pupils. She can only be reinstated after proving to a future panel that she is fit to teach.

A spokesman for the school said officials place "the safety, health and welfare of its students first". "Any allegation made by a student is taken very seriously and is investigated fully," he said.

“In this particular case, the teacher was suspended immediately and a full investigation was conducted by both the school and Telford & Wrekin Council, which led to dismissal. (The) GTC hearing fully vindicated the school's actions.”

A spokesman for West Mercia police said: "I can confirm that a 47 year-old woman received a formal cauition for battery relating to an incident in school in November 2009." Holloway has 28 days to appeal.